Will points go up or down this year?

RESULTS in hand, most school-leavers will be looking ahead to CAO Round 1 offers and wondering what are their chances of getting their preferred course.

There is no way of predicting what the cut-off points will be for any course, and CAO applicants are well advised to be patient, and wait to see what unfolds. Points are determined by a combination of the number of places on a course and its popularity.

A significant year-on-year increase in applications for a particular discipline can push points up, although not necessarily across the board, or by the same amount, because demand for individual courses will vary.

Similarly, where there is a fall in applications, points will ease, although, again, it can depend on the individual course.

This year saw an overall 4pc drop in CAO applications, which may have led some to believe that it would translate into a widespread points decline.

However, a closer look at the statistics gives useful insights into what is going on behind the headline figure.

Much of the decline in demand was from mature students, who generally apply for, and enter, reserved places in college. So, because they are not in direct competition with school-leavers, they don’t influence the points race.

The figures also reveal that, overwhelmingly, the slide in applications is for Level 7/6 courses, which have seen a drop of 8pc, double the overall average. Level 7/6 courses tend not to attract the same demand as the Level 8 (honours degree) programmes, and so don’t impact on the points race in the same way.

At Level 8, applications were down by 3pc, slightly below the 4pc average so, in real terms, no big change overall for the “honours” degree programmes.

Some fields have bucked the downward trend and are either at the same level as last year, or have seen a surge in demand. Teaching, at both primary and post-primary level, is one such discipline. It has seen a 7pc-8pc rise in applications, although the opening of some new places on second-level teaching programmes will soak some of that up.

Other areas with a big jump in interest in 2018 are biological and related sciences (+14pc), engineering and engineering trades (+4pc), architecture and construction (+3pc), and law (+3pc).

Against that, disciplines that have seen a bigger than average drop include arts (-13pc), journalism (-27pc), physical sciences (-33pc), maths and statistics (-12pc), computing (-11pc), transport services (-27pc), and veterinary (-11pc). Again, caution is advised, as within these categories, individual courses have enjoyed a growth in popularity.

Another imponderable is the impact of the restructured Leaving Cert grading system and CAO points scale, now in their second year.

The purpose of those changes was to take some of the heat out of the points race, although still encouraging student ambition and rewarding effort.

Previously, fluctuations in points were in multiples of five, which gave rise to some dramatic ups and downs.

Last year saw a certain steadying of points, attributed to the new system, and yearon-year changes, where they happen, are expected to be much smaller — and could be as little as one point.